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Have I got enough space for my babies?!

Ringside

Ringside

Hello all,

I know there are other threads like this but I just wanted to get some info on my situation.

I have a tray with 12 different kinds of pepper growing. If you look at the first image, there are a total of 36 pots with 2 - 3 seeds in each.





Now I'm really happy with how these have started to sprout and when the time is right I will be planting them in the ground. I have spent the last couple of weeks digging a patch which measures roughly 6 x 7 feet. I've been digging down around 12" pulling out rocks and turning the dirt. We've added manure and will add more good stuff before the plants are moved.

Here's the patch I've started cleaning up...



My question is have I allocated enough space to evenly plant all of my little babies? I'm concerned that they may be tight but I've never grown peppers before (my wife has, nothing too exotic though). I'm just hoping my little crop of superhots gives me some treasure!

Thanks all!
 
i think with 3 feet between plants you could be ok for chinenses...
annuum might have a tighter grid. maybe 2 feet between plants

dont forget some place to walk

i think your best bet would be to triple de size of your garden this year, triple it again next year and so on until you buy a farmland with acres and acres for your plants ;)
 
Thanks for the post.

Well from each side of the plot I can reach into the middle so I'm not worried about that, mainly just concerned about the negative effects of close plants.

I have the following plants a growing:

Yellow Scotch Bonnets
Red Scotch Bonnets
White Habanero
Naga Morich
Purple Bhut
7 Pod Jonah
Scorpion Morouga
Yellow Scorpion Cardi
7 Pod Brain Strain
7 Pod Yellow
Red Fatalii
Yellow Fatalii
 
Haha, great advice Hammerfall. I personally wouldn't plant more than 20 in that space, but that's me. I know lots of people in hot climates do the "clumping" thing successfully. My raised bed is 160 sq ft with 40 plants last year, and it was a solid "hedge" by the end of my short growing season. A few plants even got "swallowed up" by their neighbors and didn't really produce.
 
Last year I planted them 2 ft on center, and they freaked rocked!! I used a drip tape irrigation system where the emitters were spaced 2 ft apart, so ya this was all factored into the layout. Large pots do a nice job to, but you will need to add in the cost of the potting mix.
 
Yea that's why I'm reluctant to do too much in buckets. Originally I was going to do all buckets but then when I realized how much I'd need to buy I decided to start digging instead!
 
do both... some nice bucket on tha patio and around the house and the garden with the killers!

some plants are very nice and made for buckets (Like the apache and Orange cheyenne)

some plants can be like trees if you dont have frost period like the Habanero del Arbol can grow up to 12 foot tall you drop that in a corner and enjoy the view ;)

check some picture of Pepperidge farm alabamajack and Superhot on this forum... you will see what to expect from the Chinenses family can be very big !!!!
 
One of my raised beds is 6'x6'. Last season I had 4 plants in it. They included 7 Pod Primo, Yellow 7 Pod, Choclate Bhut, and Bahamian Goat Pepper. Here is a picture of how they looked in September of 2011. This was after they had recovered from Hurricane Irene's wrath.

 
I would probably plant around 20 or so and do some serious pruning. I did a trial on 2 plants last year and pruned them a LOT more than normal. I got rid of 80% of the leaves and as it grew I would get rid of any "sucker" leaves that where over 4" in size. Plants looked Anorexic and kinda of weird with very little leaves, but I noticed the plant ended up being 80% fruit and 20% leaves instead of the other way around.
 
Thanks for the opinions guys, I may just have to look up a guide to pruning. Never done it before and I'm worried about harming the plants.
 
Pruning leaves is ok to a point. You have to remember the leaves are the "factory" of a plant.

So you have approximately 42 square feet of garden space and have at least 12 pepper plants. If you look at Josh's photo he has a 36 sq ft space with four plants and it's pretty much full. You should figure about 9 sq ft per plant, that's 3'x3', which would give you room for almost five plants. Better start digging or pick up a few pots.

You can squeeze a few more in but what's the cost going to be in pod production? Remember the bottome line isn't how many plants you have or how good they look--it's the number of pods you can harvest. Crowded plants fighting for space and nutrients isn't the best way to produce a lot of pods.

Good luck.
 
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